Dr. Chad A. Mirkin's research focuses on developing methods for controlling the architecture of molecules and materials on the 1-100 nm length scale, and utilizing such structures in the development of analytical tools that can be used in the areas of chemical and biological sensing, lithography, catalysis, and optics. Mirkin has pioneered the use of biomolecules as synthons in materials science and the development of nanoparticle-based biodiagnostics. Many of the concepts and materials developed within his laboratories are now the basis for commercial detection and lithography systems.

Mirkin received his undergraduate training at Dickinson College (B.S., 1986) and his graduate training at the Pennsylvania State University where he completed his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1989. That same year he moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow. Mirkin joined the faculty at Northwestern University in 1991 as an Assistant Professor in Chemistry. In 1997 he was named Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor of Chemistry. His current positions are the George B. Rathmann Professor of Chemistry, Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, Professor of Medicine, and Director of the NU International Institute for Nanotechnology (IIN).

Mirkin has won numerous awards for his research in these areas, including: the NIH Director's Pioneer Award, the Collegiate Inventors Award from the National Inventors Hall of Fame (2003, 2004), the ACS Nobel Signature Award, the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Prize in the Physical Sciences, the Feynman Prize, the Leo Hendrik Baekeland Award, Crain's Chicago 40 under 40 Award, the ACS Award in Pure Chemistry, the Discover 2000 Innovation of the Year Award, the Materials Research Society's Outstanding Young Investigator Award, the E. Bright Wilson Prize, the Phi Lambda Upsilon Fresenius Award, a Beckman Young Investigator Award, a NSF Young Investigator Award, an A. P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship, an ONR Young Investigator Award, a DuPont New Professor Award, and a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award. Recently, he was elected as a fellow of the AAAS. In 1997, he was co-recipient of a prestigious BF Goodrich Collegiate Inventors Award for one of the three most outstanding collegiate inventions in all of medicine, science, and engineering. He holds an honorary doctorate from Dickinson College, and was elected to the school's Board of Trustees in 2005. Professor Mirkin is the author or coauthor of over 280 publications and 313 patents (55 issued). He serves on the editorial advisory board of 19 scholarly journals, and is an active consultant with several major chemical companies. In addition, he is a founder of two companies, Nanosphere and NanoInk, and co-founder of the journal, Small.

While Dr. Mirkin is the Director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology, this web page focuses on the research of the Mirkin group within the Department of Chemistry at Northwestern University.

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